Olympic diary

I decided not to follow the flat racing this season but wait for the return of the national hunt season in the autumn. In the meantime, I thought a daily Olympic diary would be a bit of fun.

The action from Brazil began today even though we haven’t had the opening ceremony yet! The footy has to start early in order to get through what is a packed program. The opening game in the women’s competition, as is so often the case in these major tournaments was something of a bore. In London 4 years ago Sweden swept South Africa aside easily 4-1 but today they found it much harder.

South Africa were nothing if not resilient in defence and the Swedes, despite having plenty of possession lacked invention in the final third. In the end a scruffy goal after 75 minutes sealed the win for Sweden when Fischer bundled the ball over the line after something of a howler by the South African ‘keeper Barker.

The other game in this group is between the hosts and China. At the time of “going to press” Brazil lead 1.0

The second game of the day between Canada and Australia was much more exciting. Canada made history scoring after only 20 seconds and then had a player sent off after 18 minutes. Despite missing a second half penalty Canada held on against the highly rated Matildas and sealed victory with a breakaway goal from veteran striker Christine Sinclair. The other two teams in this group are Germany, ranked number 2 in the world and the rank outsiders Zimbabwe.